


Fly, fly, magpie

by vivaldis_lover



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 17:11:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16067609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vivaldis_lover/pseuds/vivaldis_lover
Summary: They have been unlucky before. War tore them apart. But he finally has a chance to make her happy.





	Fly, fly, magpie

It’s the familiar rattling at the window that wakes Allura up that Sunday morning. She would be cranky for being woken up so early on the weekend, but she can’t really be mad at the creature waiting on the windowsill. With a precise gesture, she opens the curtains and sees the magpie bouncing up and down, excited to show her its newest finding – a teaspoon.

Allura opens the window with a smile, ready to accept the bird’s gift. She couldn’t understand why the bird had grown so fond of her. Its behavior was puzzling and, at the same time, she found its decision to bring her gifts extremely flattering, despite the fact that she didn’t know how she had earned such an honor.

“Thank you, little friend,” she says, picking up the gift.

The magpie bounces a couple of times more and then flies away, leaving Allura with her new piece of cutlery.

 

_“We’ll never make it”_

_“Don’t say that”_

“You’re never up this early on Sundays,” observes her father, when she walks downstairs to have breakfast. “Was it the bird again?”

“Exactly,” she says, picking a cup from the sideboard. “That’s the seventh gift it brings me.”

Allura places the teaspoon on the table. “We do share the love for shiny and sparkly things,” she observes as she pours herself a cup of coffee.

“Changing the subject, how did you sleep tonight? Were you bothered by the nightmares again?” Alfor asks, watching his daughter with a worried look.

Allura had always suffered through troubled nights and disturbing nightmares. She’s had them for as long as she can remember. Sometimes she is floating in complete darkness, unable to move. Sometimes she is chased by something in what looked like a technologically advanced castle. Sometimes her father died – those were the most terrifying.

_“What should I say?”_

_“Say ‘when this is over, we’ll go looking for sparkly things’”_

“I wonder if the magpie will ever help me find that earring I lost two weeks ago,” says Allura, getting into the car. “You know, the one of the pair mum gave me when I was ten. Now the other one feels lonely.”

She and Alfor are going looking for an empty parking lot, to let Allura practice driving in a quiet place.

“That would be a very lucky coincidence,” says Alfor. He pauses, then adds in a slightly nervous voice: “I wanted to ask Coran to join us for dinner, Allura. Is it a problem for you?”

She shakes her head. “I like Coran, dad, don’t worry. Besides, I can’t keep you from seeing other people.”

“I just don’t want to force someone new into your life,” he explains.

“It’s okay, dad. Thank you for asking.”

_“Help is on the way, stay with me”_

_“I’m always with you”_

The magpie must have heard her wish. It’s a few day later, Allura’s just come home from school. Alfor is at work. She walks upstairs to her room, decorated with posters of galaxies and a model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling. She has always felt a connection with space. Her dream is to become an astronomer or an astronaut. She doesn’t know where this passion comes from, it has been with her since she was a child watching the night sky from her room.

She drops her backpack on the bed and looks out of the window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magpie. She sees something even better.

“The earring!”

It’s there, waiting for her in the afternoon light that shines over the moon-shaped jewel. She opens the window abruptly and grabs it. She has it again, the most beautiful gift she’s ever received from her mother, in a time when her family was still happy and the cracks in the foundation still hadn’t shown.

“Thank you!” she screams, startling a stranger walking their dog.

She makes sure to put it in the her jewel box, finally reunited with its sibling.

“Thank you,” she repeats. “Thank you for looking out for me.”

_“I’ll find you again, princess”_

_“To get me something sparkly?”_

_“To get you something sparkly”_

There’s someone sometimes in her dreams, a boy she knows she has never met. The visions are dizzy and confused, she can only distinguish a flirty grin and pretty blue eyes. The nightmares are not so bad when he’s in them, they’re calmer but sadder. She wakes up feeling empty, a strange knot in her stomach, the taste of lost time in her mouth.

_“Please, don’t die”_

It has taken the magpie a while to find the earring, but it was worth it. It wants nothing more than seeing the girl happy.

It’s cruel because she is human, but she can’t remember him and he is a bird and he remembers everything. He remembers his promise to get her sparkly things. He’s watching her from the tree, he hears her “ _thank you_ ” and he’s proud of himself.

They have been unlucky before. War tore them apart. But he finally has a chance to make her happy. He can give her everything he finds, without war standing in his way. Yet he can’t help cursing against the fate that trapped him in a magpie.

Sometimes he feels too big for the little body he’s in, as if there’s too much inside of his ribcage, and so he stretches his wings as much as he can, jumps and flies, in an attempt to free whatever is inside of him.

At night, watching the light in her room switch off, he wonders if there’s a way to make her remember.


End file.
